Hello, radical rabbits! This week I ate a lot of (store-brand) pasta, walked Eli 8 miles in one day, and watched hella Simpsons. Tomorrow I’m leaving on a jet plane to see Intern Grace. Life is good, is what I’m saying.
A Pasta You Can Believe In
Bertolli is a magnifico pasta choice for queers and their allies who have carb addictions like mine during this trying time. Pasta is important. If you don’t agree, you’re not my mother’s child.
Friday, Bertolli Germany posted this pro-gay ad on its Facebook page with the caption: “Love and pasta for all!” “We just wanted to spread the news that Bertolli welcomes everyone, especially those with an empty stomach,” a representative for Bertolli, which has a history of being gay-friendly in its U.S. advertising, told Adweek.
You Should Go: Queer Yr Media w/ CLAGS
The Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in New York has two events coming up and I don’t want you to miss them!
+ EMBODIMENT: A Portrait of Queer Life in America: Monday, September 30, 2013 from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM
Molly Landreth, the recipient of the Robert Giard Fellowship in 2010-2011 for her multi-platform visual survey EMBODIMENT: A Portrait of Queer Life in America, will present images from the project and engage in a freewheeling conversation about it with art historian Professor James Saslow of Queens College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
Describing her grant-winning project, Ms. Landreth says that Embodiment is “is a multimedia archive and a journey through a rapidly changing community and the lives of people who offer brave new visions of what it means to be queer in America today. Stopping in churches, parks, high school classrooms, backyards and bedrooms, I have collaborated with individuals from both urban and rural areas for over 6 years. … Created as a joint effort with participants who boldly stand in front of my lens, Embodiment reveals images of love and survival, creative forms of gender expression and the ever changing anatomy of a family. It is my hope that these photographs, written statements, and short films will become a lasting archive for generations to come.”
+ Gay Media in America: Wednesday, October 2, 2013 from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM
This roundtable convenes nationally acclaimed gay media professionals to discuss and examine the role of gay media outlets in U.S. and proffer arguments about the vital importance of reporting by gay media outlets known as specialty media. The panel includes Ann Northrop (co-host of a weekly cable Gay USA television program), David Badash (publisher and editor-in-chief of The New Civil Rights Movement forum blog), Andrés Duque (publisher and editor-in-chief of the Blabbeando LGBT blog), and Michaelangelo Signorile (host of OutQ Radio and the Michaelangelo Signorile Show, who are carried by Sirius Radio XM). Tanya Domi, Director of Media Relations at the Graduate Center will moderate the panel.
Michelle Rodriguez Likes to Go Your Way
Rawr.
Girlfight and Fast and Furious star Michelle Rodriguez, previously very cagey about how she identifies, speaks openly about bisexuality in an interview in Entertainment Weekly’s latest issue.
“I don’t talk about what I do with my vagina, and they’re all intrigued.” she says of the media. “I’ve never walked the carpet with anyone, so they wonder: What does she go with her vagina? Plus, I play a butchy girl all the time, so they assume I’m a lesbo.” When EW points out that that’s not a fair assumption, Rodriguez laughs. “Eh, they’re not too far off,” she says. “I’ve gone both ways. I do as I please. I am too f—ing curious to sit here and not try when I can. Men are intriguing. So are chicks.” She shrugs.
Drunk Women from 1795
When I was 21, my two lesbo roommates, Katie and Katy, moved out suddenly without a peep. No, really. We discovered their empty room at the beginning of the month in which they’d moved in. To cope, my roommate and I drank copious amounts of gin and sat at the dining room table laughing about it for no less than three hours.
Turns out, I was a small part of a long history of gin-swilling ladies who get brazen. And that history dates back to 1795.
Rosie’s Still Riveting
Bells Will Be Ringin’
IT’S TIME FOR THE WEEKLY GAY MARRIAGE ROUNDUP! HIDE YOUR PRIEST AND KIDS!
+ The Illinois gay marriage ban challenge will proceed.
+ I’m willing to celebrate gay marriage coming to New Jersey with a solid fist pump.
+ Exxon will extend healthcare benefits to same-sex couples, but is still one of the most evil corporations in the history of time, Rupert Murdoch’s empire aside.
Don’t Mess With (Gay and Gay-Friendly) Texas
Why are my eyes leaking? What is this? Texas, I’m damn proud of you.
Meet Lulu, A Trans* Girl from Argentina
Luana, or Lulu, may be the youngest person in Argentina’s history to legally change her gender.
Lulu’s mother, Gabriela, petitioned Buenos Aires Mayor Daniel Scioli and Argentine president Cristina Kirchner to allow her daughter to be legally recognized as female, though she was assigned male at birth. Gabriela told the public officials that her daughter has identified as female since she first began to speak.
“By accepting that my son was not the son I gave birth to, but a girl, I accepted her identity and put myself at her side,” Gabriela told the Telegraph from Buenos Aires.
Queering Disney
Haruki Godo has put into images what I’ve been fantasizing about for my entire life.
My Ultimate Soul Twin
Sometimes when I go out, I feel like I’m going to fall over if I don’t get home by 12AM. This pup understands.
I love all the SHADE that all the other pasta companies around the word are throwing at Barilla in their new ads. It is fucking hilarious. Good on them! They saw an opportunity to speak out against homophobia and fuck over the competition at the same time.
That video made me so proud of all those people. :)
There’s something in my eye..
OMG. Michelle Rodriguez is my ultimate crush. Best news ever.
Come on, Ellen! (Page) you can come out as ‘bi’ now. That’s okay too~
You really didn’t need to put ‘bi’ in quotes.
I’m not sure about the OP’s intent, but maybe the quotes meant shorthand for ‘bisexual’, kind of like ‘comp’ for computer or ‘telly’ for television?
Sorry, OP here, yes I meant it in rhymeriver’s sense. Comes from being a journalist IRL, i guess. My bad.
(Now that dialethia mentioned it, a little little little part of me wishes she’d come out as a lesbian – she dresses more gay than me (lesbian). Yes I know we shouldn’t judge people by their clothes, buttt…..)
Peace out~
I want to marry Donovan from that WWYD? Segment. So lovely.
This is a super sweet Sunday Funday, especially with the pasta ad, but does anyone else feel a bit weird about the Disney heroines in heroes’ clothing (which could have been listed as ‘Dapper Disney princesses’ or something to that effect) as ‘Queered Disney’, in the sense that suggesting that women who wear ‘men’s clothing’ are queerer than women who wear ball gowns is problematic?
(On a side note, though I understand a will from the artist to be coherent with the original character design, these princesses could have been far ‘queerer’ if more of them were looking directly at the observer (rather than the traditional demure side-gaze) and they had realistic, fleshed-out body proportions.)
I really don’t want to cause a fuss, but I have to say I am a bit ruffled that there hasn’t been any response by the team about this ‘queer princess’ thing?
I remember one (or two?) years back or so an Autostraddle author described in an otherwise cool and intimate article the emotional process of deciding to cut their hair. They mentioned one reason was wanting to look ‘gayer’, which was something that stuck with me for a long time, in a selfish hurt way (”why should parts of ‘the gay’ evade me?”) and in an more general angry way (”why do people so seldom acknowledge that long hair can be powerful, sexual, free and terribly queer?”) and stayed unresolved in my relation to this website.
I know there have been complaints from people who have found Autostraddle too femme/feminine-centric; I’m not making an opposite claim, just saying that sometimes small unaddressed things on this website give me a vibe that there is some underlying dogma on the website that a woman in a dress who gets into a pantsuit is queerer than she was five minutes ago, and it’s not a great vibe to get.
HELLO rhymeriver! firstly, as per sections B3 and b4 comment policy, any concerns about the website in general should be directed to the editors via email.
you’re right that “queering” might not be an accurate descriptor of the project and wouldn’t have been the word i chose personally — but i think “queering” is a sort of flexible term lots of people use in different contexts with different definitions. and i think there are lots of ways to “queer” a thing and this heading carmen probably thought about for 30 seconds in this one post isn’t meant to define “queering,” let alone the entire website’s dogma! but also, i clicked on the link — and what i see is girls with long hair and makeup wearing tight pants, tiny skirts and rocking cleavage with bubblegum in their hair, so i don’t know that “dapper” applies either. megara makes hercules’ outfit look totally femme, which i love! i think there’s a lot of different presentations going on with the different characters, it kinda runs the gamut. so really maybe “queering” is the right word, but also if it was the right word for carmen, then i’m on board with i. often the “right word” doesn’t exist and we do our best with the language we do know and whatever it means to us personally. i’m sure every writer who writes for this place has a different definition of what it means to “queer” something that you’ll see reflected in their writing. queering is often used specifically because it can have so many definitions. only a few of our writers are masculine-of-center (which is a problem, honestly), so if we thought pantsuits were queerer than skirts, we’d have to fire 75% of our staff and that would be super-bitchy and sad for the whole world.
xo
Thank you so much for taking the time to answer, Riese, and to answer that quick.
I do keep my opinion that ‘queering’ probably wasn’t a good descriptor, but it really takes a rock off my heart to hear that the word doesn’t have some strong unilateral definition for the site.
(PS: Thanks for the indication about the comment policy, I’ll take note of that.)
Wow that man in WWYD has a heart of gold. I wish everyone was that kind!
I had seen that WWYD video before, and it still makes me cry.
Not being from the US I hear a lot of bad things about being queer in Texas, seeing this makes me believe that there’s a silver lining. I wanna hug everyone that spoke up
Go Texas!
Can I just say that Pocahontas hnggggggggg *devolves into hand gestures and faces*
Can I just say that Pocahontas hnggggggggg *devolves into hand gestures and faces* 藤素